A Scientist in the Kitchen

Sopas is one Filipino dish that can be good as snacks or a complete meal itself. Traditionally, it consists of boiling chicken or pork bones with salt and pepper. Once you get good tasting broth flavor, elbow macaroni is added which you cook till al dente. When the pasta is almost done, vegetables are added usually chopped carrots and cabbage. Once done, season with salt and pepper to taste and add a cup of milk to make it really creamy.

Now, me, I like to tweak my sopas and add whatever I can find in the fridge. When mushrooms are in season, there they go in my sopas. Sadly, I missed the mushroom season this year, when the mushrooms pop up from the ground near termites’ hill. That’s why these mushrooms are called Termitomyces sp. Otherwise, canned mushrooms will do. Or if I still have some dried shiitake, it goes into the pot as well. I also like to add dried herbs to my sopas -rosemary, basil, oregano and sometimes chili flakes. And the vegetables are not chopped to finely as I like my sopas chunky.

When do I make sopas? When the weather is cold or more often I have some nice bones left from deboning beef, pork chicken or turkey. Often when we roast chicken, we usually get the meat only and save the bones for making broth. Last month, I roasted turkey (with lots of lemongrass!) for my sister’s birthday. We carved the meat and I saved the bones for making sopas for dinner. It was really good.

(Added 18 Dec 2007: Want a truly Pinoy version? It’s here.)

To make sopas, you will need:

meat broth (chicken, beef, pork)
elbow macaroni
chopped vegetables (carrots, cabbage, mushroom, asparagus… anything goes!)
salt and pepper to taste
a cup of milk

1. Bring to boil the meat broth. I usually make the broth by boiling soup bones in water till the meat flavor comes out.
2. Add the elbow macaroni (other pasta shapes will do like farfalle, rigatoni and penne - but this would not really be a Filipino dish).Add dried herbs such as oregano, basil, thyme, rosemary).
3. The elbow macaroni is cooked till al dente. Just taste the macaroni a few minutes after boiling. When macaroni is almost done, added the chopped vegetables. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
4. Turn off fire and add the milk.

Variations? You may add flaked chicken meat, ham or sausages for a more filling dish.

For more pasta dishes, join the gang at Presto Pasta Nights at Once Upon a Feast for a recap of this week’s pasta cooking around the world.

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Whenever I want a simple and homey grilled chicken, I usually just marinate chicken meat in soy sauce, crushed pepper and garlic. Filipino food usually use a lot soy sauce in the dish, to add salt or color. It’s all according to taste, I really don’t know the exact measurements. And just before grilling, I add the juice of one calamansi (Philippine lemon). It has never failed to satisfy my craving and have always impressed my foreign friends whenever they visit at home. Dippings? Just a combination of soysauce, lemons and chopped chilis will do.

It’s as homey as it can get, we have what we call a “dirty kitchen”. Most Filipino homes you would find a kitchen within the house where you have a gas stove or an electric one. And outside is the old-fashioned way cooking where one uses firewood to boil away meats to perfection. It is usually sooty and smoky with the smoke from the wood-fired stove. For grilling? We use dried coconut husks which easily turns to coal which is perfect for grilling. One can use metal griller to put the meats or since I live in a farm, cut off a few branches of Madre de Cacao (Gliricidia) and put on top of the coal. That’s your griller!

I play soccer with a bunch of international students on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Sunday, November 11, we’re joining the Alaska Cup, the biggest and most prestigious soccer tournament in the Philippine. Soccer emthusiasts of all colors, ages and sizes from all corners of the Philippines gather for “THE BEAUTIFUL GAME”. We also have baseball games, complete with baseball trophies too, right in our backyard. Though soccer is still my game.
This brings to mind one American student with us several years back, Addie, who tried to join us but couldn’t seem to get the rhythm of the game. So she became our photographer instead. We had a tournament once, and our team emerged champions. So to celebrate the occasion, we had a potluck party with each one bringing a dish from his/her country. We had curry, eggs, pasta salad, pancit, dal and chapati. There were two of us Filipinos, too lazy to cook Filipino food. So we ordered Pancit Malabon from a restaurant here. Those who were not able to cook, brought the drinks. The highlight though were the freshly baked apple pies made by Addie. It was my first time to taste a freshly baked apple pie. Now, that’s really American, I think. Here’s the recipe as she shared it with us.

Oil Pie Crust: about 2 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 teaspoon salt, 3/4 cup oil, 1/3 cup milk stir it up, put half of it between 2 sheets of wax paper and roll it out (or, if you dont have those things, just smush it like i did)

Apple Pie: about 6 apples (i used Gala apples, but tart cooking apples are good too), about 1 1/4 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons flour, 2/4 teaspoons cinnamon, little bit of nutmeg, about 2 tablespoons of butterpeel and slice the apples less than 1 cm thick (THANKS PAUL!!! he did that for me). stir together the dry ingredients. stir apple slices in dry mixture. put the mixture in the crust and cut pieces of butter onto the top. put another layer of crust on top (yes, it should be completely covered, but i had no rolling pin or wax paper to do that—so just smushing works well too)
This is my favorite apple pie recipe which I make on special occasions. I still have to bake this for my current soccer team though. First things first, we’ve got to win some games this Sunday!

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It’s another week of blogging on herbs and vegetables and time for a round-up on Weekend Herb Blogging. Head over to The Expatriate’s Kitchen for this week’s round-up.

Presto Pasta Nights??? My first time to join a community of pasta and noodle lovers all over the world. I’m drooling over the recipes right now…

Linguine is my favorite pasta - either with white sauce or red sauce. Here’s my recipe for a creamy linguine with chunks of tomatoes. First, bacon is cooked till most of the oil has been removed. Not too crispy either as the smoked bacon flavor tends to get lost in the cooking. Prepare all the other ingredients. While preparing the sauce, you can start boiling water for pasta which you will cook al dente following package directions.

Put olive oil in pan then add onions and a dash of salt. Saute for 30 seconds then add the chopped garlic. Saute till onion and garlic are limp. Add oregano powder and the dried herbs. Saute for a while then add cream. Mix till cream starts to simmer. The cream should start to almost curdle then add choppped basil leaves and parsley. Mix well then add the linguine pasta. Add the choppped tomatoes,bacon, then salt and pepper to taste. Remove pan from fire and serve. To give it some kick, add a dash (or several depending on how hot you like it) of cayenne pepper before adding pasta Or serve with chili flakes.

Ingredients:
4-5 bacon strips, fried till almost cripsy then chopped
a sprig of parsley, chopped
several basil leaves, chopped
2-3 tbsp olive oil
1 bulb of white onion, minced
one head of garlic, chopped
250ml all-purpose cream
dash of oregano powder
1/4 tsp each dried basil leaves, oregano leaves, tarragon leaves
4 ripe tomatoes, chopped and seeded
cayene pepper or chili flakes (optional)

Recipes to try:
Linguine Fini with Scallops
Linguine with Turkey Sausage and Peppers

Need more pasta recipes? Visit Ruth Daniels’ Once Upon a Feast for more… Can’t have to much of pasta so appetite suppressants such as Phentermine 37.5 mg might work for you.